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By Aubree Nichols
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On Sept. 6, I posted a Google review of Resolutions, the Santa Monica, California, sober house where I lived for three months and eventually relapsed last December. I'd been sitting on it for a while, afraid my critique would come across as too emotional. Fourteen days later, Presley Gerber, the son of Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber, died there. Police suspect an overdose, but the Los Angeles County medical examiner has deferred the cause of death pending toxicology.
I am a privileged 49-year-old white woman in Los Angeles who was sober and relatively happy for over 18 years until around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. My hormones and sleep tanked, and I got hooked on sleeping pills and benzodiazepines. Yet none of them worked for long because I developed a dependence. In February 2025, I went to rehab to get sober. When I left the program, I still needed structure and support as I transitioned back to the real world, this time without benzos. And that's how I ended up at Resolutions Living. It wasn’t a lockdown facility but a supportive living house where I could come and go as I wanted, as long as I was back by the 10 p.m. curfew. In those early days of my recovery, I needed to be protected from myself, but that place did not keep me safe.
The house was lovely. I had my own suite with a bathtub for $17,000 a month that my parents willingly paid in addition to the rent on my Santa Monica apartment. I realize now that, just like the Gerbers, families do anything they can to keep their children alive. The staff, most of whom were in early recovery and aspiring to be therapists, made sure I had the wild-caught salmon, Japanese sweet potatoes (please), gluten-free chips and miso dressing I liked. They were kind. But they were much too lax for an addict like me.
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My med box, which contained various antidepressants and sleeping aids, was locked in a cabinet. The only person between me and any pill I wanted in my box, from supplements to pharmaceuticals, had no clinical training. I could get to it all night. Sleep issues were my thing, so I'd tiptoe down the stairs at two in the morning and ask for my box. Someone would unlock the cabinet and hand it over. Nobody ever asked why. An extra prescription sedative, a couple of melatonin, an L-theanine gummy. Once a night. Sometimes twice.
I brought in a prescription sleeping pill from an outside psychiatrist, and nobody questioned its origin. The Resolutions psychiatrist could have pulled up my controlled-substance history in California's CURES database and seen exactly what I was being prescribed (and by whom) with a few clicks on his keyboard. He didn't. Eventually, he prescribed me the highest recommended dose of two additional sleeping medications. I didn’t tell him I was already taking the other prescription, but he easily could have checked. The medications made me so out of it that one night I hit my head on my door so hard that I drew blood. When I complained to the house manager that I was having bad side effects, he told me, "You're not compliant unless you keep taking it. Give it time." Around then, my sister, whom I’d been talking to more and more as things got worse, called my parents and said, "We're losing her. We've got to get her out of there."
There were cameras and a nightly med audit. My pill count went down but nobody said a word. I attended Resolutions’ intensive outpatient program, which included therapy, life coaching, acupuncture, creative writing and process groups four days a week. I told two of my therapists there that I was abusing my medication. Instead of reporting me, they promised not to say a word to the administration.
What finally got a response was admitting I’d called the outside psychiatrist for a benzo. I’d relapsed. He would write me any prescription I asked for. The little round one-milligram pills that sent me into a blissful state of comfortably numb. Resolutions kicked me out of the house and my parents shipped me off to my third rehab in two years. That was December 2025. I left my third (and hopefully, last) rehab in March 2026 and have been on the straight and narrow since.
Since Gerber’s death, Resolutions has come under fire for how it runs its sober house. The Los Angeles Times reported last month that Reza Nabavi, the founder and CEO of Resolutions, was denied a psychology license in 2004 over two misdemeanor drug convictions and granted one two years later on probation that required random drug testing. It is active today. He has declined to comment publicly on the Gerber case. I texted the Resolutions head of admissions to tell him I was writing this story and to see if the company wanted to respond to what I’m sharing about my treatment; he declined. This month, TMZ reported that Resolutions called police for a suspected overdose earlier this year. That person survived, according to the outlet. TMZ also reported that at least four Resolutions employees have quit since Gerber’s death.
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Resolutions Living isn’t a rehab, though the press called it one for weeks after Gerber died. I shared a reel about what the media got wrong about his death. It has been viewed more than a million times. In California, a sober living program with six or fewer residents and no clinical services doesn’t need a license. After Gerber died, a complaint from a reform advocate prompted the California Department of Health Care Services to review whether Resolutions was operating "beyond the lawful scope of sober living” and if it accepted him at a time when he required a "higher level of care." The department found the complaint “not substantiated" and closed the case. I believe that it needs to be reopened.
The language around sober living and addiction treatment programs can be confusing, and it can be difficult for people to navigate and figure out what’s best for their loved ones. As Dr. Josh Lichtman, a Los Angeles-based psychiatrist and addiction medicine specialist, explained, a sober living facility is “primarily a structured, substance-free living environment, and should not be treated as a substitute for detoxification or clinical addiction treatment.” These houses can be very different, he told me. "Some facilities have awake overnight staff, some have a resident house manager, and others have much less supervision," Lichtman said. "The level of medical and clinical training can vary considerably." A licensed treatment program, by contrast, provides “actual clinical care, including medical assessment, psychiatric care, therapy and monitoring,” he said.
I believe people who work in recovery care deeply and have good intentions but I've observed that their desire to be liked by a client can sometimes supersede what that client needs. Who doesn't want to be liked? Ultimately, a recovery center is still a business and that muddies the waters too.
People shouldn’t assume more expensive programs are better. "Price and amenities don't necessarily tell you anything about the quality of the clinical care," Lichtman said. "The question isn't how luxurious a place is. It's who is treating your loved one and what are their qualifications."
In March of this year, Gerber posted on Instagram from Cancún, where he said he’d gone for ibogaine, a psychedelic that’s banned in the U.S. but offered in Mexico as an experimental treatment for opioid addiction. I understand why he tried it. I tried everything too. My second and most successful rehab was in Ibiza of all places because I heard there was a doctor there who was brilliant at benzo detox. It was a stark contrast to my Los Angeles experience at Resolutions. That residential treatment center ran a tight ship. They rationed coffee pods, didn't allow sugar and my peers took me to task if I didn't show up for my recovery. That said, in the four months that I was there, they only checked my blood pressure twice. But they focused on the right things. The beast of addiction. The trauma beneath my use. My triggers. Most of all, they forced me to take responsibility for my healing.
The last thing I want to do is air all my dirty laundry. It's part of my story, but I still have shame and all the shoulda, coulda, wouldas that come with it.
But somebody should have asked why I needed my med box at two in the morning. Somebody should have opened my records to see I was abusing my medication. Somebody should have read the med audit. My therapists should have reported my behavior instead of trying to be my friend.
It shouldn't have taken Gerber's death to expose what's broken in American recovery. Reports say he arrived high. He should never have been admitted. Protocols should come before personalities. Check every bag. Drug test every client. Anyone who shows up high goes to detox or the emergency room. None of this is complicated. It's just not enforced. The job isn't to keep clients happy. It's to keep them alive.
I got the salmon I preferred but almost died. Gerber didn't make it out.
Aubree Nichols is a Los Angeles-based writer exploring beauty, bodies, sleep, sanity and what it means to be human.
All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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